SUSAN examines her stasiphobia (fear of standing up) and blames schools for instilling the damaging habit in those as young as five-years-old

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APPARENTLY I’ve been leading a very risky and hedonistic ­lifestyle without even knowing it.

What’s my vice? That would be sitting.

I’d have been better off standing outside with the rest of the smokers on their fag break, merrily chuffing away, because according to all reports, sitting is the new smoking. If this is true I should seriously think about cutting back, but it’s not as easy as it seems.

I get up in the morning and immediately sit back down to write, I sit in my car and, I sit watching telly all night.

Since I started walking, I’ve been partial to a sit down. It’s been a life-long affliction of mine. If only there was a patch to help me give up, or a helpline I could phone.

“Hello, SitLine.”

“Yes hello, I’m finding it hard to adjust to all this standing up malarkey. In fact, there’s a chair right across from me and I don’t think I have the willpower to resist it.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Last week I even had a slip up – those chairs at the door of Marks & Spencer’s. They just looked so inviting, offering a moment’s sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the crowds.

“As soon as I took the weight off my feet I knew it was wrong, but it felt so right. I’m not going to lie, I enjoyed it.”

“It is perfectly normal to have a few botched attempts at standing. In the first few months of giving up you should try to avoid places of temptation, like DFS, SCS and Ikea.”

This may be an exaggeration, but I’m being truthful when I say that everything else in my life is just an obstacle to me sitting down. If there was such a thing as a sitometer – and there should be – I dread to think how much sitting I would rack up.

I realised I might have a problem a few years ago on a flight from Scotland to Brisbane.

After disembarking the aircraft, after nearly a full day sitting down, I boarded the little bus on the runway that ferries you to the airport and was seriously miffed that I couldn’t get a seat on it – after a 24-hour sitting binge! It was then that I knew I’d hit rock bottom.

I started to examine my stasiphobia (fear of standing up) and realised it wasn’t entirely my fault.

For starters, I blame schools. Even though every fibre of your five-year-old being itches to run around, they stick you behind a desk for the majority of the day. We don’t like it at first but then, as with most addictions, we slowly but surely become dependent.

Still, you can only blame others for your addiction for so long. Sooner or later you have to take responsibility, though maybe the Government could step in and remind us how damaging sitting down is.

They could stick warning signs on the side of couches, like they do with fags, or fine companies for glamorising sitting down. The adverts on TV always make it look so appealing and fun.

A lot of people are under the impression that working out for an hour a day can offset the damage that sitting causes. It doesn’t. At least I didn’t make that mistake, I never exercised either.

So it’s comforting to know gym freaks are just as at risk from death and heart disease as hard-core sitters.

Alarmingly, calorie burning drops to just one per minute and fat burning enzymes drop by 90 per cent while sitting, so it’s not surprising to learn that Victoria Beckham has swapped her office chair for a treadmill desk.

Although, if standing up makes you that miserable, I think I’ll just give in and have a seat.